Scoop: Aims To Become The ‘New’ Facebook

Scoop is a forthcoming mobile social network application that aims towards college students for their on-campus activities and social communities. Where as Facebook has more of an open eye dealing with all sorts of social information and media, Scoop will focus more on events around campus, whether it be a basketball game, or a frat party.

Scoop’s aims are high, so high infact that Google CEO Eric Schmidt’s investment company ‘TomorrowVentures’ have given investment towards the development company behind Scoop, Trumpet Technologies who also have a hand in Facebook Places.

Trumpet Technologies have put two students in charge of the project. Nick Simmons and Michael Akilan who also say that they want to “leverage users’ social connections with a recommendation engine, actively engaging students in activities they’d enjoy,” according to PC World.

While speaking to Venture Beat, Simmons said “Imagine having a campus-wide conversation about what’s going on. That information is not all in one place today.”

Scoop developers do realise that they are stepping on Facebook’s big toes here, but they also say that they intend to use Facebook to create social awareness for their product. I guess the main point that Scoop will have over Facebook is that it is going to be purely a mobile phone application, although Venture Beat say that “Simmons says the choice of initial platform may change, at some point during the upcoming school year, at selected campuses.”

If you are interested in what Scoop is all about, you can check out the website here.

The big money question would be — can this compete with Facebook? I guess if they can lure people with the promise of more privacy control and less commercialization, they may have a chance. Diaspora anyone?

Great, James, another social-networking site, an alternative to Facebook, which is becoming more and more like Big Brother as it expands its capabilities of gathering our personal information — and with Places, our exact location — for repackaging and selling to marketers and advertisers.
The trouble with Scoop, as you report here, is it’s development has been funded by the CEO of Facebook’s’s arch rival, Google, which is even more egregious than Facebook, perhaps, in its violating our privacy online. And worse, it’s aimed at society’s most vulnerable — and valuable — cross-section for marketing purposes: college students.
I think it would be better for college students — and the rest of us — to communicate, chat and share files, photos and video with fellow students, professors, friends and family without having to give up all that information.
On zeldab.com, we will never allow invade its users privacy, so marketers, advertisers — as well as spammers, window peepers and other predators — are kept away. It’s great for anyone at school, at work or at home, as it offers users the ability to keep different circles of friends, family members, business associates, teammates, whatever, all with complete privacy and security. Check it out at http://www.zeldab.com.